back to the (other) island

i've sat down to write this post several times over the last few days, so i'm just going to hammer something out and you're going to have to deal.

the other island would be the island of manhattan. am back for a brief couple of days before heading down to dc this weekend and florida next week. had a lovely, long thanksgiving break on the cape - headed home last tuesday night and worked remotely on wednesday. (by remotely i mean from the movie theater while watching 'harry potter 7'). my brother and sister didn't come home, so it was a quiet holiday overall, but it was nice to sleep in and catch up on bondathon and the 'airplane!' and 'naked gun' movies (RIP leslie nielsen). even caught a ride back to new haven with a friend from high school on sunday so the trip back was less painful than anticipated. i reconnected with this friend during the high school cross-country alumni run on saturday at our old xc course. we've been doing this alumni run every year for the last couple of years, and it's always nice to revisit old memories and see people, but i am still sore and recovering. darn power line hill - they don't have hills like that in manhattan.

back on the other island, i'm trying to get things taken care of in the office and for the holidays as there's a lot to do and not a lot of time left to do it. vin is in nyc this week and staying with me, so we've been doing dinners and catching up. last night i went to dinner with some of my former coworkers, who i am happy to say have truly become friends, something i feel incredibly fortunate to have be the case. i loved the restaurant we went to - 'bobo' in the west village - and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cozy spot for a hot toddy.

speaking of hot toddys, it's strangely mild in nyc, but the christmas tree stands have appeared on the sidewalks. in manhattan vendors set up to sell christmas trees every couple of blocks, so every couple of blocks you walk through a little forest with the smell of balsam in the air. kind of unique to nyc, and quickly puts you in the holiday mood. it's one of my favorite things about nyc. i'm actually looking forward to the holidays this year for a change and december is one of the best times to be in nyc. :)

this and that

so. carrie wrote in asking for an update and i know i've been delinquent in posting. so here's a (drunk!) stream of consciousness:

- been fortunate enough to catch up with some old friends as of late. ceppos was in town for the marathon, as was christine a few weekends ago. we had a heigh-ho time doing some touristy things, pop power-houring and shutting down the joshua tree. boxa was in town with her sister this past weekend, so we lunched, walked, ate treats, behaved badly, chortled a lot, almost shut down the 'dead poet', brunched with mulley and ppocket and found ourselves passed out on my kickball teammate's couches on sunday morning after eating pizza and watching the soul-scarring movie 'the human centipede'. i was lucky enough to black out the entire experience, but boxa watched all 2 hours of it (hmm).

regardless, it was wonderful to see her as it had been quite some time - she's doing a surgery residency at mass general, and while glad to be back in boston, see earlier comment about 'bostonian view of the world' when it comes to boxa. she sometimes overwhelmed with the 'life is just so daily' aspect, but aren't we all. i'm just glad to have her a bus ride away after several years of med school in michigan.

capped off last weekend with dinner with celestia on sunday night for a pre-tday catch up, and i also saw lingley last weekend for her bday. lingley and i are scouring the internet to find a house we can rent for new years. tbd. really good to spend time with the old friends though. i feel like they remind me of who i was and who i am at heart, which sometimes gets lost in the day to day and really ought to come out more frequently. we were slightly shocked to realize that we've known each other for 5-10 years at this point (and hopefully many more to come).

- just purchased a bus ticket to dc for the first weekend in december to see a boy i met at a wedding in september. pretty pathetic that i have to travel 4 hours to see boys remotely interested in interacting with me, but beggars can't be choosers. have mixed feelings about this - i def do want to see him but part of me thinks i'm a little crazy for this one. i probably am. but if we weren't all crazy we would go insane.

- headed home tomorrow to the cape for the tday holiday. will be a late night and prob won't get there until 2 am or so on wed morning, but so much to be said for waking up at home and i can't wait to be there, even if two of my siblings won't be in attendance. 'it cleans me out and then i can go on' to be home.

- we got our nails done on saturday. boxa and i got this delightful red tomato color called 'escapades' on our toes and 'trendy' gray on our fingers. both are making me inordinately happy.

- my evil project at work launched last week. i had my flip outs a month or so ago, so the week leading up to launch was pretty calm, on my part at least. i still think the project is crap, and am expecting it to come crashing down any second, but people seemed pleased and wrote nice notes after launch and i feel a huge weight off my shoulders to have it behind me. not out of the woods yet, but onwards and upwards.

- read this quote in the latest oprah magazine and have been pondering it ever since (see below). i like the concept expressed. one of the nicest compliments i have ever received came from my tripee 5 days after i had broken up with my bf from college. he said 'you're so full of life.' that is what this quote reminds me of:

'life. fire. being myself on fire i set others on fire. never death. fire and life. le jeux.'

there you have it. talk soon.

what $150 buys you in the poconos

• room and board in a 20 person house for three days. i heart house parties
  
• epic icing scenarios
• all the alcohol we could drink (and a lot we couldn't) including a bottle of hot damn. YES.
• a hot tub
• three semi-serious injuries including two hot tub wipeouts and a sore butt from falling down the stairs
• several not-serious injuries. but everything hurt on saturday morning.
  
• repair for the broken sheet rock wall in the basement that resulted from the fall down the stairs (side note: it seems no one has a picture of this. how is this possible? i literally felt like i had been blasted in the chest by a spell ala harry potter and flung down to the button of the stairs. this happened on thursday night, about 2 hours after i arrived. i joke about the #1 rule being no death but sometimes it hits a little too close to home)
• impromptu dance parties with fantastic music including multiple replays of 'dynamite' and 'the club can't even handle me right now'
• 4 group viewings of the pirate porn
• several rounds of ugly christmas sweater flip cup (of course i won. hi kickball)
  
• a trip to the poconos brewing company in our ugly sweaters. people thought we were teachers.
• quite a few compliments on my breasts
• two hungover trips to an outlet mall where nothing was purchased. i texted ceppos that i probably shouldn't have been out in public at that point
  
• an opportunity to see a grown man wear a purple fleece onesie (without feet) THAT HE FOUND IN THE HOUSE out in public
• two epic freakouts over rearranged furniture. we're talking 'couches stacked to the ceiling blocking the means of egress' furniture arrangements
• three nights of post-3 am bedtimes
• lots of beruit practice
• the nickname 'mackrel'. apparently i accessorize with fish more than i realized
  
• amazing food all weekend courtesy of lopez and amy (pot roast and beer can chicken. i don't eat that well at home)
  
• a round in the hot seat during a game of kings - 'does the carpet match the drapes?' 'how many people here have you slept with?'
• deer and wildlife sightings
• 11 new friends and one special friend ;-P
• one kick ass weekend to celebrate lingley's 26th birthday #wewerethereanditwasawesome

the music faves from the wknd:

1. ke$ha - 'blow' and 'we r who we r' - both off her new album that comes out 11/22
2. trey songz - 'bottoms up' 'bottoms up bottoms up what you got in your cup got a couple bottles but a couple ain't enough'
3. chris brown - 'yeah x 3'
4. pitbull - 'hey baby (drop it to the floor)
5. rihanna - 's&m' 'b/c i may be bad but i'm perfectly good at it'

november

hi all! i'm here! i'm back! i survived the move! in typical friday fashion - i am hungover at work. i have too much stuff to do to have an (effectively) 4 day work week! kickball is now being held at a new bar called 'nevada smiths'. they have a great downstairs area that's kind of remniscent of a frat basement with flip cup tables and amazing music. and they could fit pong tables down there, albeit with low ceilings. i'm just saying.

but yes - the move is complete - SO glad to have that behind me. my brother was a huge help with the heavy lifting and while i was sad to hand in the keys to apartment 7, i'd been living a half-life waiting to move for so long it was time to get on with it. i do have to do a 'things i will miss/things i will not miss' list to properly mourn the change:

things i will miss
1. living with vin (duh)
2. the terrace (double duh)
3. my room - i loved it - see earlier post
4. the proximity to dylan murphys/having dana and hopper for neighbors

things i will not miss
1. the commute from the upper east side (can get to work in 15 minutes now!)
2. the french people who lived downstairs

onwards and upwards i guess.

got internet installed this morning. i can live without cable but not without internet, though i've been managing okay on my bberry all week. the new apt is good so far - i do feel a little bit like i'm sarah from 'a little princess' who gets banished to live in the attic when she loses her fortune and befriends the people across the roof in that i'm on the top floor and the apt feels like it was once the maid's room or something, but it works for me. nothing to report on the shared bathroom scenario either - i haven't seen a soul on my floor since i moved in.

i LOVE LOVE LOVE the location - right at the heart of everything - trader joe's, movie theatre, shopping, drug stores, bakeries and mulley and ece are my new neighbors. went up to 'the dead poet' bar on 81 and amsterdam on tuesday for an inaugural drink in the old new neighborhood and found my new favorite bar. pub feel, good food, and mysterious 'dead poet' beverages that taste like cough syrup but will fuck you up. pick me!

big weekend on tap in nyc - christine and ceppos will be in town to see folks run in the nyc marathon on sunday. tonight is beer olympics at hearn's and then it's a pop power hour and karaoke event tomorrow night. oof. my head already hurts. or is that last night's hangover?

lunch time and back to 'work'!